Face The Nation

(CBS News) Below is a transcript of "Face the Nation" on September 22, 2013, hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Guests include: Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Plus, a panel of experts looks at the week's news.

SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. There is breaking news this morning in Nairobi, Kenya, as more troops have been brought in as a hostage standoff continues with an Islamic militant group in an upscale shopping mall. At last count, 59 have been killed; 175 have been wounded. Four of the wounded are Americans. These images were taken by New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks. We will continue to monitor this situation and bring you more news on it as it happens. In Washington, the attention is back where it has been before in recent years, another congressional shutdown of the government. Three key players in the debate with us. We begin with West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. And let me just start right here, Senator Manchin. The House passed this budget that funds the government for the rest of the year but only if funds for Obamacare are cut off. Is there any way, shape or form, any way that that would possibly pass the Senate?

MANCHIN: No. And next of all, it should be an unacceptable option. There is no way we should be talking about shutting the government down. But I will say, on the other hand, Bob, raising the debt doesn't fix the debt. We're talking about our financial future. We're talking about getting our financial house in order. We need real adults at the table working that out. You know, every six months or so this seems to come before us, and it end up being a political football.

SCHIEFFER: But why do you think -- why do you think this has happened? The president said "They're just messing with me." That was his direct quote. Why do you think they've done this?

MANCHIN: I've been here for three years and nothing has really changed. No one's really been serious about fixing it. And the blame can be on everybody, Democrats and Republicans. We had the Bowles- Simpson template out there. It's the only bipartisan, had a large buy- in. It's continued to gain momentum throughout the country. It's a tough one, but it needs -- you know, it needs to be done. You need to take that, whether it be spending and revenue and reforms, that are reasonable, and sit down and work this out. But when you start putting these nuances or wedges in, such as the affordable health care act, or Obamacare, you know what? I didn't come here to vote no on everything. I could -- this could be the happy retirement home if you vote no all the time. Let's fix it. Let's repair it. And since I have been here, not one of my colleagues have come up and said, "Joe, here's a better way to do it. Here's how we can fix this part. Let's repeal this, and we'll fix this part of it." Nobody has done that. They've just said, "OK, vote up or down." Well, let's fix things.

SCHIEFFER: What would you think would be a way to, kind of, get this started again?

MANCHIN: On what, the...

SCHIEFFER: Anything.

MANCHIN: Oh. Well, first... I understand your frustration. The bottom line is, you've got to sit down and say, "What's our goal?" Our goal is, first of all, if your finances are not in order, whether it's privately in your own home or your business or whatever, you can't do anything. We've found ourselves in a situation now, we need to rebuild America. We're spending money around the world we can't afford. You know, the wars have cost us $1.6 trillion. We need to come back. We almost started another one. I'm glad we averted that, and hopefully that's going in the right direction. But the bottom line is what's the most important thing? You pick out your priorities based -- you know, based on your values, your children having a start in life, having an opportunity, educating a work force, making sure you take care of those who sacrificed and give them back and make sure you're strong enough to defend this country and help people who need help around the world.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think people really understand what it would mean to shut down the government, and even if we don't shut down the government, to continue with the sequestration in place, where you're going to have to drastically cut back our national security apparatus, that in addition to putting these vital social programs at risk or ending them?

MANCHIN: Bob, I do think they know -- there's people who were here when it happened before, the last time it happened, and they know how devastating that was. Politically, it was devastating also, and I don't think they're going to go down that road again. But we really should get people together. The leadership should come together and start giving options that are viable options. You know, from the budget standpoint, they say the Republicans are saying that we don't have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem. Democrats are saying we don't have a spending problem; we have a revenue. They're both right and wrong. But we need a tax system that people believe in. And if it spends off more cash, can't we agree on how it should be spent? If 70 cents of every new dollar went to debt reduction until we got our financial house in order; the next 30 cents goes to infrastructure, it's not Democrat or Republican. That's American.

SCHIEFFER: You know, Senator, after the Newtown massacre, you worked very hard to get a rewrite and tighten up the background checks on people before they bought weapons. You lost -- it came to a vote and you lost by six votes. Now we've had this awful thing at the Washington Navy Yard. Do you have any idea -- do you plan to bring that back or is there going to be any movement to try to tighten up these background checks?

MANCHIN: Bob, first of all, my prayers and thoughts go out to these families. It's just horrific. These crimes and these mass crimes like this, it's just horrific what it does to our society, but think what it does to those families. So all of our hearts and prayers and thoughts go out to them. Next of all, this is not background -- I mean, this is not gun control, what myself and Pat Toomey put forward. Strictly, it's a common sense what we call "gun sense" background check. We want to know, through a commercial transaction, are -- do you have a criminal record? Have you been adjudicated from serious mental illness? Or are you a terrorist? We should know those things.

SCHIEFFER: Well, are you going to try to put some new emphasis on that?